Lumbini
On Trial: The Untold Story
There are compelling reasons for believing
that the present site of Lumbini, the Buddha’s birthplace, is the result of an
astonishing hoax. The details of its discovery in 1896 reveal a tale of
deception and intrigue, which is now told for the first time.
At present, controversy continues to surround
the location of Kapilavastu, the Buddha’s native town, with both
Any attempt to assess the reliability of the
present identifications for Lumbini and Kapilavastu should begin by taking a
close look at the circumstances surrounding their discovery. Chief among the
participants in those events - and in my view central to them all - was the
extraordinary figure of Dr Alois Anton Fuhrer, a German archaeologist employed
by the (British) Government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh between
1885-98, and co-discoverer of the present Lumbini site.
Modern Indologists, whilst aware of Fuhrer’s
unsavoury reputation, have nevertheless neglected to conduct any close scrutiny
of his activities, fondly believing that these have long since been
satisfactorily catalogued and assessed, and that Fuhrer may be safely consigned
to oblivion in consequence. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case.
Fuhrer, in fact, drove a coach and horses through critical areas of Indological
research, and his deceptions continue to have far-reaching consequences for
Indian history to this day. He was a prolific plagiarist and forger (who
worked, alarmingly, on the first two volumes of the Epigraphia Indica) 1
and I have good reason to believe that his deceptions were sometimes
condoned, even exploited, by the Government of the day, for imperial reasons of
their own. I believe that these fraudulent activities included both the
Piprahwa discoveries and those of the Nepalese Tarai, and that these are fair
game, in consequence, for any assessment which keeps Dr Fuhrer very firmly in
mind. Following Fuhrer’s dismissal in 1898, the Secretary to the
Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces remarked, in a letter to
central Government, that ‘His Honor fears it must be admitted that no statement
made by Dr Fuhrer on archaeological subjects, at all events, can be accepted
until independently verified’. 2. Unfortunately this verification
was by no means as rigorous as one might perhaps have wished, as we shall
shortly see.
Fuhrer was appointed to the position of
Curator at the
Fuhrer’s first venture into fraudulent
activity appears to have occurred in 1892. In his Progress Report for this
year, Fuhrer copied entire passages from Buhler’s articles on inscriptions at
Sanchi and Mathura into the report of his own excavations at the site of
Ramnagar, in the Bareilly district. 4. This wholesale
and extensive plagiarism appears to have passed completely unnoticed during
this period, including, apparently, by Buhler himself, with whom Fuhrer was
then in correspondence. He also fraudulently incised Brahmi inscriptions on to
stone exhibits in the
In 1893, Major Jaskaran Singh, a wealthy landowner
from Balrampur, reported the discovery of an inscribed Asokan pillar at Bairat,
a deserted spot near Nepalganj, on the Indo-Nepalese border. 6.
Two years later Fuhrer ‘left for Balrampur...to look up the Asoka pillar’ which
Singh had reported, but ‘it turned out that the information furnished by Major
Jaskaran Singh was unfortunately misleading as to the exact position of this
pillar’, and ‘after experiencing many difficulties’, Fuhrer found a pillar near
the village of Nigliva, about 100 miles east of Singh’s
originally-stated location. 7. An Asokan inscription was
reportedly discovered by Fuhrer on a broken piece of this pillar, the main
shaft of which lay close by. Though the local villagers supposedly informed him
that ‘other inscriptions were hidden beneath the soil’ in which this stump was
partly buried, Fuhrer was refused permission to excavate it, and he was thus
‘compelled to content myself with taking impressions and paper moulds of the
lines visible above ground’. Permission to excavate was granted two months
later, but as this was ‘without any results whatsoever’, it is evident that the
inscription was that of ‘the lines visible above ground’ on Fuhrer's arrival.
8 . This is most important, as we shall shortly
see.
The inscription referred to Asoka’s
enlargement of the stupa of the ‘previous Buddha’, Konagamana, which according
to Fuhrer was situated nearby, ‘amidst vast brick ruins stretching far away in
the direction of the southern gate of Kapilavastu’. Fuhrer gave extensive
details of this ancient and impressive structure, declaring that it was
‘undoubtedly one of the oldest Buddhist monuments in
All this was pure moonshine however, as later surveys soon revealed. Fuhrer’s Konagamana stupa didn’t exist, and its elaborate details (including those ‘ruined monasteries, fallen columns, and broken sculptures’) were shown to have been lifted directly from Alexander Cunningham’s book ‘Bhilsa Topes’ 10. The stupa was doubtless invented by Fuhrer as an additional support for the Asokan inscription at the site; but why should he consider this deception necessary if the inscription itself were genuine - as is still supposed - one is then prompted to ask? Further grave doubts arise from Fuhrer’s statement that this inscription was ‘visible above ground’ on his arrival. For in a later (1899) report by Drs. Hoey and Waddell, it emerged that in 1893 - i.e. two years prior to Fuhrer’s visit - Hoey had commissioned the local Governor, Khadga Shamsher, to take rubbings of any inscriptions on pillars in the area, ‘but these were not of Asoka lettering’. This report also showed that Fuhrer was lying when he claimed that the inscribed portion of this pillar was ‘resting on a masonry foundation’, the precise measurements of which he also gave ; this didn’t exist either, the broken piece being merely stuck into the ground at the site. 11
Finally, the Divyavadana describes how
Asoka was conducted to Lumbini for the first time by his spiritual preceptor,
Upagupta, who pointed out to the king the spot where the Buddha was born.
Whilst the inscription on the Lumbini pillar states that this visit occurred
when Asoka had been anointed twenty years, the inscription at nearby Nigliva
states that Asoka ‘increased for the second time the stupa of Buddha
Konagamana’ when he had been anointed fourteen years. 12.
This is absurd. Why would Asoka decide to enlarge the Konagamana stupa - and
for the second time - six years before he had even set foot in the Lumbini
area?
The following year found Fuhrer back in
The site was – and indeed, still is -
supposedly called ‘Rummindei’, this being considered to be a later variant of
the name ‘Lumbini’. 15. But as E. J. Thomas observed:
‘According to Fuhrer, “this deserted site is still locally called Rummindei” (Monograph, p. 28). This statement was generally accepted before Fuhrer’s imaginativeness was discovered, and is still incautiously repeated. Yet he admitted that it was not the name used by the present Nepalese officials. “It is a curious fact (he says) that the true meaning of this ancient Buddhistic name has long been forgotten, as the present Nepalese officials believe the word to signify the sthan of Rupa-devi”. V. A. Smith said “the name Rummindei, of which a variant form Rupadei (sic) is known to the hill-men, is that of the shrine near the top of the mound of ruins”. This gives no further evidence for Fuhrer’s assertion, and it appears that neither the Nepalese officials nor the hill-men called it Rummindei’. 16
The Indian Survey map of 1915 shows the spot
as ‘Roman-devi’; it should be noted that another ‘Roman-dei’ exists about 30
miles WSW of the Nepalese site, near the Indian town of Chandapar. 17.
Today, the site is situated in the ‘Rupandehi District’ of
The
Lumbini Pillar Inscription.
Whatever the event, in December 1896 Fuhrer
met up at this Nepalese ‘Rummindei’ with the local Governor, Khadga Shamsher,
‘a man with intrigue in his bones’, 18 who having assassinated one Prime
Minister of Nepal and plotted against two others, was eventually compelled to
flee to British India and sanctuary. 19. The
subsequent excavations around the pillar reportedly disclosed an Asokan inscription
about one metre below ground, and level with the top of a surrounding brick
enclosure.
The credit for the discovery of this
inscription later prompted an official enquiry, since Fuhrer had supposedly
left the site - quite inexplicably - immediately before any further excavations
had begun, leaving the Governor and his ‘sappers’ to do the digging. In his
official letter on the matter, Fuhrer stated that he had advised the Governor
‘that an inscription would be found if a search was made below the surface of
the mound’ on which the pillar was situated. 20. Since,
as we shall shortly see, there was no previous historical reference to
such an inscription, one wonders at Fuhrer’s remarkable prescience on this
occasion. However, since this inscription forms the real basis for the present
identification of this site with Lumbini, I propose to deal with it in further
detail before passing on to evidences afforded by other features at this
location.
The appearance of this inscription in 1896
marked its first recorded appearance in history. The Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hsien
and Yuan-chuang, make no mention of it in their accounts of the Lumbini site
(though Yuan-chuang does mention Asokan inscriptions on pillars at the nearby towns
of Konagamana and Krakuchandra Buddhas) and concerning Kapilavastu and its
associated sites (such as Lumbini) Thomas Watters observed:
‘We have no records of any other pilgrims visiting this place, or of any great Buddhists residing at it, or of any human life, except that mentioned by the two pilgrims, between the Buddha’s time and the present. No doubt pilgrims went to the place and worshipped and wrote their names on topes or columns, but they did not tell of their pilgrimages to the sacred sites nor did others write their stories for them.’ 21
In Watters’ book ‘On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in
‘Yuan-chuang, as we have seen, mentions a stone pillar, but he does not say anything about an inscription on it. The Fang-chih, however, tells us that the pillar recorded the circumstances of Buddha's birth’. 22
The Fang-chih (which is merely a shortened version of Yuan-chuang’s account) does nothing of the sort, since it also refers to a stone pillar only, and no inscription is mentioned in this text either. 23. Watters was referred to by V. A. Smith as ‘one of the most brilliant ornaments’ of Chinese Buddhist scholarship, and it is quite inconceivable that he would have made this absolutely critical error. There are frequent references to the Fang-chih throughout the rest of Watters’ book, and it is evident that he was perfectly familiar with its contents. Moreover, when Smith asserted that the Lumbini inscription ‘set at rest all doubts as to the exact site of the traditional birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, 24 Watters retorted that ‘it would be more correct to say that the inscription, if genuine, tells us what was the spot indicated to Asoka as the birthplace of the Buddha’. 25. Note that ‘if genuine’ : this shows that Watters not only had his doubts about this inscription, but that he was also prepared to voice those doubts in public. Indeed, according to Smith, ‘Mr Watters writes in a very sceptical spirit, and apparently feels doubts as to the reality of the Sakya principality in the Tarai’ 26 (which would hardly have been the case if Watters had thought that the Fang-chih verified this pillar inscription). From all this, it is evident that this ‘mistake’ was thus completely at variance with Watters’ ‘very sceptical spirit’ regarding these supposed Sakyan discoveries (Lumbini included) : and I shall therefore charge that it was, in fact, a posthumous interpolation into Watters’ text by its editors, Rhys Davids, Bushell, and Smith (Watters’ original manuscript can no longer be found, I have been informed). If this charge is correct, then the reasons behind this appalling deception can only be guessed at, I need hardly add. 27.
Fuhrer was later found to have fraudulently laid
claim to the discovery of about twenty relic-caskets at sites close to Lumbini,
which allegedly bore Asokan, and even pre-Asokan inscriptions. 28.
One of these caskets supposedly contained a tooth-relic of the Buddha, which
Fuhrer illicitly exchanged for various expensive gifts with a Burmese monk, U
Ma (the correspondence between these two makes for lamentable reading, with
Fuhrer exploiting U Ma’s gullibility pretty unmercifully). 29.
Following an official enquiry into the matter, this tooth-relic was found to be
‘apparently that of a horse’: Fuhrer had explained its large size to an
indignant U Ma by pointing out that according to ‘your sacred writings’ the
Buddha was nearly thirty feet in height!
According to Fuhrer, this ‘Buddhadanta’ had been found by a villager inside a ruined brick stupa near Tilaurakot, and was ‘enshrined in a bronze casket, bearing the following inscription in Maurya characters: “This sacred tooth-relic of Lord Buddha (is) the gift of Upagupta”’ (the mentor of Asoka). 30. Having obligingly parted with the relic, the villager had refused to part with the inscribed casket itself ‘which is still in his possession’. Fuhrer reported finding this bogus Asokan inscription during his Nepalese visit of December 1896, the selfsame visit which saw his involvement with the discovery of the Asokan inscription at Lumbini. Even more ominously, Fuhrer’s Progress Report on the Lumbini discovery finds him excitedly pointing out that the Lumbini inscription includes words which were supposedly spoken by Upagupta whilst showing Asoka the Buddha’s birth-spot (at least, according to the Divyavadana) : ‘It would almost appear as if Asoka had engraved on this pillar the identical words which Upagupta uttered at this place’, Fuhrer tells us, all wide-eyed. 31. However, what with a phoney Upagupta quote on the casket, an Upagupta quote on the pillar, and Fuhrer’s keen taste for forging Brahmi inscriptions, one wonders whether Fuhrer himself didn’t have Upagupta fatefully on the brain around this particular period (and here, we may recall that he had fraudulently incised Brahmi inscriptions on to stone four years earlier: see ‘Fuhrer's Early Years’). And indeed, this pillar inscription ‘appeared almost as if freshly cut’ when Rhys Davids examined it in 1900, 32 a view echoed by Professors N. Dutt and K. D. Bajpai, who noted that ‘it appears as if the inscription has been very recently incised’ when they examined it fifty years later. 33. W. C. Peppe’s original article on the Piprahwa events (which reveals that his 1898 JRAS article was considerably polished and reworked, presumably by the ubiquitous V. A. Smith) was later privately published at Calcutta (n. d.). In this version, Peppe', writing of the ‘Lumbani’ pillar, mentions that ‘the rain falling on this pillar must have trickled over these letters and it is marvellous how well they are preserved; they stand out boldly as if they had been cut today and show no signs of the effects of climate; not a portion of the inscription is even stained’. Inscriptions on other Asokan pillars located at sites associated with the Buddha’s life and ministry - Sarnath and Kosambi, for example - contain no references to their Buddhist associations, as this pillar so conspicuously (and twice) does; and no other inscription makes reference to any erection of a particular pillar by Asoka (as this one does) either. And with the exceptions of Sarnath and Sanchi (where only broken bases of pillars have been found) all other inscribed Asokan pillars display six or seven lengthy inscriptions covering each column, whereas this pillar and the Nigliva pillar display only single meagre inscriptions of 4 -5 lines each, and as J. F. Fleet has pointed out, they are not really edicts at all. 34.
There is an additional mystery here. As noted
above, Fuhrer had supposedly left the site just before the inscription was
unearthed. Yet he had travelled up from Lucknow, crossed the Tarai to Nigliva
-a difficult and laborious undertaking - and then been further redirected to
the ‘Rummindei’ site, where he had been appointed to superintend the
excavations. According to the existing accounts, Fuhrer finally arrived at the
site, identified the pillar as Asokan, told Khadga Shamsher that an Asokan
inscription would be found after further excavation, and then,
astonishingly, left just before the inscription was exposed. This is, quite
simply, unbelievable. Following his supposed discovery of the Konagamana
inscription the previous year, Fuhrer would have known that if this pillar was
found to be Asokan, it would then be regarded as the Lumbini pillar, marking
the site of the Buddha’s birth. So are we really to believe that after several
days’ arduous efforts to reach this site, and declaring that this world-shaking
discovery was now so close at hand – a couple of hours’ excavation away at most
– Fuhrer would then simply walk away, leaving Khadga Shamsher to
expose the inscription in his absence? This is like believing that Howard
Carter would choose to walk away from the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun ;
it was, after all, a defining moment not just of Indian archaeology, but of
world history also. According to V. A. Smith, Duncan Ricketts, a nearby
landowner, ‘had the good fortune to be present while the inscription was being
unearthed. Dr Fuhrer arrived a little later’. 35. But this
ignores Fuhrer’s earlier presence at the site, before this exposure had
occurred ; and since there is no reference to Ricketts in the accounts of these
events which were furnished by Fuhrer and Khadga Shamsher, one can only assume
that Fuhrer had alerted him to these excavations after this mysterious
departure (Ricketts lived a mere five miles away). So what’s to stop Fuhrer
from forging the inscription, filling in, and then notifying Ricketts of
events at the site (an action which would also have served to remove any
subsequent awkward questions on the matter)? Only this scenario, it seems to
me, can serve to explain Fuhrer’s extraordinary departure at this critical
moment - by far the most important in his entire archaeological career - and it
is evident that skulduggery was very much at work here.
Fuhrer refers to a ‘pilgrim's mark’ on the
upper part of this pillar, and whilst giving no details of its language,
script, or content, he nevertheless dates it at around 700 AD. 36.
He states that since this item was visible above ground whilst the Asokan
inscription lay hidden beneath the soil, this somehow explains Yuan-chuang’s
failure to notice the latter during his visit to Lumbini around 635 AD. Since
there is no such ‘pilgrim's mark’ on this pillar however - this was yet
another Fuhrer lie – it is evident that this was yet another clumsy attempt (as
with the phony Nigliva stupa) to add credence to this Asokan inscription
also. Why else would Fuhrer invent it?
There
are also serious problems with the pillar inscription itself. The term ‘silavigadabhi’
which occurs in this inscription appears to have baffled all attempts at
translation thus far. Fuhrer himself stated that ‘Vigadabhi is
equivalent to the Sanskrit vigardabhi “not so uncouth as an ass,” i.e.,
a horse; it is a compound adjective, qualifying sila’ 37 a comment which other researchers have
passed over in an embarrassed silence. No Sanskritist that I have approached
has ever even heard of ‘vigardabhi’ - let alone agree that it could
remotely be translated as “not so uncouth as an ass” - so I can only surmise
that Fuhrer proposed this absurd ‘translation’ as some sort of bizarre private
gibe towards his detractors at this time.
Most damaging of all, however, is the
occurrence of the term ‘Sakyamuni’ in this inscription. In all other
Brahmi inscriptions this term appears as ‘Sakamuni’, the earliest
example of the Sanskritized ‘Sakyamuni’ being found in the Kharoshthi
inscription on the Wardak Vase from Afghanistan (2nd century AD). 38. There would, in fact, appear to be no
epigraphical support whatsoever for the presence of ‘Sakyamuni’ in this Asokan
Brahmi inscription, and I shall therefore charge that this gives direct
evidence that it is yet another blatant Fuhrer forgery. Whilst the
term occurs in the Pali scriptures these were also written down later, and as
J. F. Fleet observed:
‘The inscriptions of India are the only sure grounds of historical results in every line of research connected with its ancient past; they regulate everything that we can learn from coins, architecture, art, literature, tradition, or any other source. 39
A similar caution has been expressed by
Richard Salomon:
‘...there can
be no question that in Buddhological studies as a whole the testimony of the
inscriptions has not generally been given the weight it merits, and that the
entire field of the history of Buddhism, which has traditionally been dominated
by a strongly text-oriented approach, must be re-examined in its light. 40.
The
Location of the Lumbini Pillar
The pillar at the present Lumbini site is in
the ‘wrong’ place; that is, it is in a very different position, relative to the
so-called ‘Sacred Pool’, from that mentioned by Yuan-chuang (and the pillar
rests upon a support-stone, it should be noted here). 41.
According to this pilgrim, a decayed ‘Asoka-flower’ tree lay twenty-five paces
to the north of the pool at Lumbini, marking the birth-spot of the Buddha. To
the east of this lay an Asokan stupa, marking the spot where ‘two dragons’
bathed the newly-born prince; to the east of this were two more stupas, close
to two springs; to the south of these was another stupa; close to this were
four more stupas; and close to these was the stone pillar itself, broken in
half and lying near to a little ‘river of oil’. A little elementary geometry
will disclose that the pillar thus lay - apparently at some distance - to
either the east or to the south-east of the pool. At the present site, however,
the pillar (on its support-stone, remember) stands a mere 75 metres or so to
the north-north-west of the pool, a position diametrically opposed to
that given by Yuan-chuang in his carefully detailed account.
In 1994, I
photographed an official notice at the present Lumbini site (see Fig. 1 ) the text of which ran as follows:
‘The famous
Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang says :- “Lumbini is on the bank of the River
Telar where an Asokan pillar (with a split in the centre), the
Yuan-chuang, alas, makes no such statement,
and like Fa-Hsien, his account makes no mention whatsoever of any ‘
Similarly, the sandstone image in this
‘temple’, supposedly of Mayadevi giving birth to the Buddha, appears equally
dubious on a closer examination of its origins. This bas-relief, in
which the figures are so defaced as to be virtually unrecognizable (see Fig. 5 ) formed part of the cache of broken
statuary which Mukherji found during his visit to the site in 1899. These
included figures of Brahmanical deities such as Varahi, Durga, Parvati and the
like, 44 and it is noted that the supposed image of Mayadevi bears a
striking resemblance to figures of yakshis and devatas also (see Figs. 2-4 ). It is by no means certain that the top
of this figure, with its raised arm holding a tree-branch, was originally associated
with the torso, either. This all-important feature was absent when Hoey first
noted the image in 1897, being later added by Mukherji from among the broken
Brahmanical pieces mentioned above. During a subsequent visit, Landon noted
that among various examples of Mukherji's careless assembly of these pieces was
one displaying a head of Ganesh wrongly placed on to ‘the headless body of a
female deity’ 45 (see Fig.
6 ). Whatever the
event, it is evident that all of these items - the so-called ‘Mayadevi’ figure
included - were associated with the earlier structure found by Mukherji, and
that they are therefore Brahmanical and mediaeval in consequence.
In January 1898, Mr W. C. Peppe', manager of
the Birdpur Estate in north-eastern Basti District, U. P., announced the
discovery of soapstone caskets and jewellery inside a stupa near Piprahwa, a
small village on this estate. An inscription on one of these caskets appeared
to indicate that bone relics, supposedly found with these items, were those of
the Buddha. Since this inscription also referred to the Buddha’s Sakyan
kinsmen, these relics were thus generally considered to be those which were
accorded to the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, following the Buddha’s cremation.
The following year these bone relics were
ceremonially presented by the Government of
·
Peppe' had been in contact with Fuhrer just before
announcing the Piprahwa discovery (Fuhrer was then excavating nearby, at the
Nepalese site of Sagarwa). 47. Immediately following Peppe's
announcement, it was discovered that Fuhrer had been conducting a steady trade
in bogus relics of the Buddha with a Burmese monk, U Ma. Among these items –and a year before
the alleged Piprahwa finds - Fuhrer had sent U Ma a soapstone relic-casket
containing fraudulent Buddha-relics of the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, together with
bogus Asokan inscriptions, these deceptions thus duplicating, at an earlier
date, every important detail of Peppe’s supposedly unique finds. 48.
Fuhrer was also found to have falsely laid claim to the discovery of seventeen
inscribed ‘pre-Asokan’ caskets at Sagarwa, his report even listing the names of
seventeen ‘Sakya heroes’ which were allegedly inscribed upon these caskets. 49.
The inscribed Piprahwa casket was also considered to be both Sakyan and
pre-Asokan at this time - though its characters have since been shown to be
typically Asokan - and no other pre-Asokan Sakyan caskets have been discovered
either before or since this date.
·
the bone relics themselves, purportedly 2500 years
old, ‘might have been picked up a few days ago’ according to Peppe', 50
whilst a molar tooth found among
these items (and retained by Peppe') has recently been found to be that of a
pig. 51. The eminent
archaeologist, Theodor Bloch, declared of the Piprahwa stupa that ‘one may be
permitted to maintain some doubts in regard to the theory that the latter
monument contained the relic share of the Buddha received by the Sakyas. The
bones found at that place, which have been presented to the King of Siam, and
which I saw in Calcutta, according to my opinion were not human bones at all’. 52. Since Bloch was then both Superintendent of
the ASI Bengal Circle and also Superintendent of the Archaeological section of
the Indian Museum, he would presumably have drawn not only upon his own
archaeological expertise in making this assertion, but also that of the
zoologists in the Indian Museum itself. This Museum – formerly the Imperial
Museum – was then considered to be the greatest in Asia.
·
the Piprahwa caskets look very similar to caskets
found at Sanchi sites (see Figs. 7-12 ) a source used by
Fuhrer for other deceptions. A photograph of the ‘rear’ of the inscribed
casket, taken in situ at Piprahwa in 1898 (and never published
thereafter) discloses that a large sherd was missing from the base of the
vessel at this time (see Fig.
8 ). Having closely
examined this casket myself in 1994, I noted that a piece had since been
inserted into this broken base (though the join had obviously been ‘nibbled’ in
a rather clumsy attempt to get this inset piece to fit). The 1898 photograph
also reveals a curious feature on the upper aspect of the casket; this, I
discovered, was a piece of sealing-wax (since transferred to the inside) which
had been applied to prevent a large crack from running further. From all this,
it is evident that this casket had been badly damaged from the start, a fact
unmentioned in any published report. But is it likely, one is prompted to ask,
that this damaged casket, supposedly containing the Buddha’s relics,
would have been reverently deposited inside the stupa anyway? Or is this the
broken casket, ‘similar in shape to those found below’, which was reportedly
found at the summit of the stupa, and which promptly vanished without trace
thereafter? 53. This
broken (summit) casket was the earliest of the alleged Piprahwa finds : so did
Peppe take it to Fuhrer, and did Fuhrer then forge the inscription on it? Is the Piprahwa inscription, in fact,
merely another Fuhrer forgery? Epigraphists with whom I have raised this question have
argued that Fuhrer did not have the expertise for such a deception, but as
Assistant Editor on the Epigraphia Indica, Fuhrer would have been at the very cutting
edge of palaeographical studies at this time, quite apart from his close
association with the great epigraphist Georg Buhler. Furthermore, H. R. Dani
has drawn attention to both the carelessness and crudity of this inscription’s
execution, and there are distinct peculiarities in some of the characters also.
·
on his return to the
·
the declassified ‘Secret’ political files of the
period reveal the disquiet felt by the Government of
If this find is spurious, then it is evident
that any later claims for this site may be safely dismissed in consequence. In
1972 an Indian archaeologist, K. M. Srivastava, made the startling claim to
have discovered yet further relics of the Buddha in a ‘primary mud stupa’ below
the Peppe' one. He then stated
that since the Peppe bone relics could not be safely determined to be those of
the Buddha (due to the ‘indiscriminate destruction’ caused by Peppe’s
excavation) the inscribed casket of 1898 somehow ‘pointed’ to those relics
allegedly found lower down, and that these were the real relics of the Buddha, as mentioned by the casket’s
inscription. This somewhat bizarre proposal thus rests upon the notion that the
1898 inscription itself is genuine, but since we have already noted that Fuhrer
had fraudulently duplicated Peppe’s find anyway, then this later claim becomes
equally unreliable in consequence. I also note that Srivastava makes no
mention, in any of his various books or articles on his alleged finds, of the
earlier bequest to
For
additional information arising from my researches into this subject, see http://www.piprahwa.org.uk
The
Kapilavastu of the Chinese Pilgrims
It is thus with a certain sense of relief that
one finally turns to the testimonies of the two Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hsien and
Yuan-Chuang, who are the only really reliable guides that we have to the
whereabouts of Kapilavastu and Lumbini.
After all, not only did these pilgrims actually visit these
places in the 5th and 7th centuries AD, but their accounts reveal precisely how
they got there also. These accounts remain the Rosetta Stone, as it were, on
the whereabouts of ancient Indian Buddhist sites, and without them much of Indian
history would have remained a closed book, as Cunningham and others have
gratefully acknowledged.
Now not only do the pilgrims agree on the location
of Kapilavastu (and thus serve to confirm each other) but as they both actually
went to Kapilavastu, then this must
surely settle any question regarding its whereabouts. From the city of
Before proceeding further, it will be
necessary to point out that of the original Kapilavastu site, most
archaeological traces will have long since disappeared anyway. As Herbert
Härtel has pointed out:
‘The hope to recover the original structures and ruins of a town or habitation of the time of the Buddha, let us say Kapilavastu, is almost zero’. 61.
The problem being that the earliest burnt
brick buildings found in India date to the second century BC (with the
exception of the Harappan sites, which need not concern us here) and any
earlier remains would have long since returned to clay in consequence. We are
thus compelled to rely upon the pilgrims’ accounts together with whatever local
traditions may tell us, and this in an area where following the extinction of
Buddhism, all threads of such traditions were broken, and Buddhist sites were
either abandoned to the jungle or converted into Brahmanical sites instead.
Astonishingly, however, one such tradition appears to have survived; and I
propose to examine this in detail, since it would appear to hold what may prove
to be the key to the Kapilavastu problem at last.
Will
the Real Kapilavastu Please Stand Up?
At the correct distance from Sravasti
(about 84 miles), and in the right direction also (south-east) lies the
pilgrimage site of Maghar, about sixteen miles west of
For A. C. L. Carlleyle, who did archaeological
tours of this area in the 1870s, tells us not only that the Maghar site is
‘very ancient’, but that it was ‘reputed to have been the seat of Buddhist
hierarchs for some time after Kapilavastu was destroyed’. 64. Kapilavastu was destroyed during the
Buddha’s lifetime, by the king of Sravasti; yet when the Chinese pilgrims
visited the Kapilavastu remains a thousand years later, they still found
Buddhist monks in residence there (and one might safely assume that these would
have included ‘Buddhist hierarchs’). 65. One also
notes ‘the prominent association of this place (Maghar) with Buddhism’ 66 (including
Buddhism in its later, ‘concealed’ forms, such as Nathism, Tantricism, etc)
together with the curious tradition that with the arrival of Kabir, a dried-up
local stream began to flow once more. This is more likely to refer to the
reawakening, at Maghar, of the anti-Brahmanical, anti-caste tradition of
Buddhism by the similar teachings of Kabir, one feels, than to any sudden and
supernatural antics of the local River Ami. And just who, one wonders, was the
protective ‘Lord’ of the (Buddhist) Tharus - the earliest recorded inhabitants of Maghar - whose place of worship
(beneath a tree) was called the ‘Thakur-dih’, or high place of the Lord, but
upon whose name ‘tradition is silent’? 67. According to
Mohan Singh, the worshippers of ‘Thakur’ were Buddhists, and the word was
applied to the image of the Buddha. On visiting the ‘Thakur-dih’ site in 2005, I
was twice informed by local sources that Chinese travellers had visited the
place long ago, and that they had stayed in the area for a while. 68. The remains at
the site – which include ancient walls and wells - call for detailed and
careful examination, as do various mounds in the vicinity.
Whatever the event, it is evident that Maghar
was formerly a major Buddhist site. Just as we are told that the Chinese
pilgrims found Buddhist monks at the Kapilavastu site a thousand years after
its destruction, so we are told that Maghar was also occupied by important
Buddhist monks ‘after Kapilavastu was destroyed’. The sayings of Kabir supply
us with direct historical evidence that people were still choosing to die at
Maghar following the demise of Indian Buddhism, and though the Varanasi
Brahmins declared that dying at Maghar meant rebirth in hell, Buddhists
believed that to die in a place associated with the Buddha’s earthly presence
meant rebirth in heaven. Local tradition affirms that Maghar was visited by
Chinese travellers long ago, and its location agrees perfectly with that which
was given by both of the Chinese pilgrims for that of Kapilavastu itself. It is, without a doubt, the former
site of Kapilavastu itself.
From the palace-city of Kapilavastu,
Yuan-chuang travelled to the Arrow Well. He states that this lay 32 li (between
5-6 miles) to the southeast of the city, a bearing which accords with that
which is given by Fa-hsien. From here, Yuan-chuang travelled ‘80 or 90 li
north-east’- about 15 miles - to the Lumbini Garden, though he gives no direct distance between Kapilavastu and
Lumbini. Fa-hsien, however, states that he went directly from Kapilavastu ‘50
li east’ to Lumbini (about nine miles), but this distance is impossible to
reconcile with Yuan-chuang's triangulation. If Yuan-chuang's bearings are
correct - and they are usually more precise than those of Fa-hsien - then
Lumbini must have been just a few miles further on.
According to the Buddhist scriptures, the
Rohini River constituted the border between the neighbouring Sakyan clans of
Kapilavastu and Koliya, and the Lumbini pleasure-park was used by these clans
for their mutual recreation.
From this it would appear that they thus regarded Lumbini as a territorially
‘neutral’ site, which presumably, therefore, lay either on or close to this
river border. 69.
‘About one and-a-half miles to the north-west of Gorakhpur, close to the junction of the Rohini with the Rapti, is a large and high mound, the ruins of the ancient Domangarh, said to have been founded by, and to have received the name from, a ruling tribe called Dom-kattar. The bricks which compose the interior or oldest portion of the ruins of Domangarh are very large and thick, and of a square shape. During the construction of the Bengal and North-West Railway, in 1884, a relic-casket was discovered near this khera containing an amulet of thin plate gold, representing Yasodhara and Rahula, the wife and son of prince Siddhartha, as well as the ornaments of a child. The relics are deposited in Lucknow Provincial Museum.’ 70.
Since this deposit obviously predates the
mediaeval fort at this khera (mound) it is evident that Domangarh (nowadays
Domingarh) was also an ancient Buddhist site, and the interment of a
relic-casket there shows that it was a place of Buddhist sanctity also (there
are stupa remains still present at the site). The representations on the amulet
are of interest, whilst the large size and square shape of the oldest bricks
strongly suggest that they are Mauryan, and may therefore be part of the Asokan
stupa mentioned by Yuan-chuang at Lumbini (on this point, see ref.74). Kushan terracottas (1st-3rd
centuries AD) and Northern Black Polished Ware (500-100 BC) have been
discovered at the Domingarh site, these artefacts being housed in the
Purvayatan Museum at Gorakhpur University. 71. These latter
finds push the dating of this site’s occupation back to a very ancient period
indeed, the NBP Ware finds being possibly contemporaneous with the Buddha
himself.
Domingarh lies about 14 miles east of Maghar, bearings which accord acceptably with those travelled by Yuan-chuang between Kapilavastu and Lumbini. Moreover, its position also accords precisely with the bearing – about 35 miles east – which was given by both pilgrims to their next place of visit, which was that of the Rama Stupa (which I take to be the Ramabhar Stupa, for reasons given below) and it is, indeed, directly en route from Maghar to this stupa. The site lies on the Rohini river - there are no other ancient sites along its banks - and since (before the railway) it became an island during the rains, it would thus have been accepted as a ‘neutral’ recreational place by the two Sakyan clans in consequence. It is still a pleasant place to visit, being on a slightly elevated stretch of ground with fresh air and good views, and local Europeans even built a sanatorium - a place of healing - upon it, and would also repair to it for purposes of recreation. Close to it, curiously, is a village called Koliya, and the great mediaeval saint, Gorakhnath (whom many regard as a crypto-Buddhist) chose a nearby site for his ashram. During a recent visit to the site, a friend was informed by locals that Domingarh was named after a queen : this may link with Yuan-chuang’s version of ‘Lumbini’ as ‘La-fa-ni’ (‘beautiful woman’) whilst other accounts state that Lumbini was named after a Koliyan queen. 72.
Both pilgrims report that having left the Lumbini Garden, they travelled east 200 li / 5 yojanas (about 35 miles) to ‘Lan-mo’ (Rama) where they found an Asokan stupa, with its attendant vihara, situated beside a lake. Earlier traditions regarding the Rama stupa are mentioned by both pilgrims in considerable detail. One of these traditions declared that it was the only stupa containing original relics of the Buddha which had remained unrifled by Asoka, whilst another tradition held that wild elephants had repeatedly paid homage at the stupa with gifts of flowers. 73.
Taking Domingarh as Lumbini, we find the Kasia
site about 35 miles due east, bearings which match those of both pilgrims from
Lumbini to the Rama stupa. By far the oldest structure at the Kasia site - the
bricks are deemed to be Asokan 74 -
is that of the Ramabhar Stupa, which, like the Rama stupa of the pilgrims, is
situated beside a lake. 75. Whilst this name – ‘Ramabhar’ –
has always been a puzzle to scholars, I take it to signify the stupa of Rama and its attendant vihara 76 (since
‘bhar/bihar’ = ‘vihara’ 77). At this site, a life-size statue of a
seated Buddha (the so-called ‘Matha-Kuar’) once bore an inscription – now
abraded - which began with the words ‘Rama rupa’ (a rupa being an image
of the Buddha). 78. During excavations of 1904-5 a plaque was
discovered, also bearing a seated Buddha, showing a row of elephants
carrying flowers, precisely as depicted in the tradition mentioned by the
pilgrims for the Rama stupa. 79. Very few of the votive offerings
which were found at the Ramabhar stupa were found elsewhere at the Kasia
remains, a fact which attests to the stupa’s position as the central
sacred feature at this site. 80. Since the Rama stupa’s
Buddha-relic was left untouched by Asoka, this would signify the Buddha's
‘parinirvanic presence’ at Kasia, thus explaining the ‘parinirvana’ statue, the
‘parinirvana’ copperplate, and the sealings of the ‘monastery of the
Mahaparinirvana’, all of which were found at this location. 81. At present, Kasia
is identified with the site of Kusinara, where the Buddha died; but if this
identification is correct, and we backtrack from Kasia using the pilgrims’
accounts, we shall then find Kapilavastu situated somewhere northwest of
Allahabad, and Sravasti located northwest of Lucknow. Nobody, I trust, would
seriously attempt to support such proposals.
From the Rama Stupa, both pilgrims travelled
100 li / 3 yojanas (about 21 miles) east to the spot where Siddhartha sent back
his charioteer, Khanna, following the flight from the palace. The scriptures
state that having left by the eastern gate of Kapilavastu at midnight, the
prince crossed the Anoma River at daybreak, and thus found safety within the
neighbouring kingdom of the Mallas. Having instructed Khanna to return to
Kapilavastu, Siddhartha then cut his hair, changed his royal robes for those of
an ascetic, and spent a few days at a nearby mango-grove before heading south.
Both of the Chinese pilgrims appear to have
followed the prince’s escape route from Kapilavastu, and their accounts reveal
that not only had Siddhartha travelled directly eastwards to reach this place of renunciation (hence his exit from the
eastern gate) but that in doing so he had left both his father’s domain, and
also – rather daringly - crossed Koliya, the domain of his in-laws. Since both
of these Sakyan territories were then part of Kosala - and were thus, in turn,
subject to the rule of the king of Sravasti - it would appear that the young
prince had resolved to leave Kosala entirely, and to flee to a place from which
he could not be compelled to return.
Authorities are agreed that the eastern border of Kosala was then the
Great Gandak river. From the Rama
Stupa the Chinese pilgrims travelled 3 yojanas / 100 li (21 miles) eastwards to
this place of renunciation, and since this distance and direction equate
precisely with those from the Ramabhar Stupa to the Great Gandak, it seems
evident enough that this great river border was the Anoma River of the
scriptures.
From Siddhartha’s ‘place of renunciation’,
both pilgrims travelled 180 li / 4 yojanas southeast to the Ashes Stupa of the
Moriyas of Pipphalivana, and from there, having travelled through a ‘great forest’
(Yuan-chuang) they arrived at the site of Kusinara, where the Buddha died. Now
while Fa-hsien gives ‘12 yojanas east’ (about 84 miles) from the Ashes Stupa to
the Kusinara site, Yuan-chuang, contrary to his usual custom, gives no
distance, but corrects Fa-hsien’s direction to ‘northeast’. This overall
distance and direction is happily confirmed by the ‘Fang-chih’ moreover, which
gives 500 li northeast - also about 84 miles - for this journey. 82.
These bearings take us to the ancient Champaran area of north-western Bihar, an
historically fascinating area, now strife-torn and neglected, which
nevertheless ‘presents an immense field for research’ according to V. A. Smith.
The Champaran gazetteer, whilst referring to
Yuan-chuang’s ‘great forest’, also mentions Champaran’s glorious Vedic past:
‘Legendary history, local tradition, the names of places and archaeological remains, all point to a prehistoric past. Local tradition asserts that in the early ages Champaran was a dense primeval forest, in whose solitude Brahman hermits studied the aranyakas, which, as their name implies, were to be read in silvan retreats; and the name Champaran itself is said to be derived from the fact that the district was formerly one vast forest ( aranya ) of Champa (magnolia) trees... it was a place of retreat for Hindu ascetics, where, removed from worldly ambitions, they could contemplate the Eternal Presence in the silence of a vast untrodden forest. Various parts of the district are connected by ancient tradition with many of the great Hindu rishis ... such as Valmiki, in whose hermitage Sita, the banished spouse of Rama, is said to have taken shelter. This great sage is reputed to have resided near Sangrampur, and the village is believed to be indebted for its name (which means the city of the battle) to the famous fight between Rama and his two sons, Lava and Kusha ... it seems probable that Champaran was occupied at an early period by races of Aryan descent, and formed part of the country in which the Videhas settled … and founded a great and powerful kingdom. This kingdom was in course of time ruled over by king Janaka ... under his rule according to Hindu mythology, the kingdom of Mithila was the most civilized in India. His court was a centre of learning, and attracted all the most learned men of the time; Vedic literature was enriched by the studies of the scholars who flocked there; his chief priest, Yajnavalkya, inaugurated the stupendous task of revising the Yajur Vedas; and the speculations of the monarch himself, enshrined in the sacred works called the Upanishads, are still cherished by the Hindu community.’ 83.
These details perhaps recall that in response to Ananda's plea not to die in this ‘little wattle-and-daub town’ of Kusinara, the Buddha replied that ‘long ago’ - also a reference to Vedic times - Kusinara had once been a great royal city called Kushavati. 84. The Champaran area is noted for having what are believed to be the only Vedic remains ever discovered in India (thought to be royal tombs) at the site of Lauriya Nandangarh, where an Asokan pillar also stands. Here several great burial mounds were found, in one of which was discovered an iron coffin containing ‘unusually long’ bones, presumably of some ancient warrior-king. 85. I believe that this was the region into which the young Siddhartha had earlier disappeared, seeking wisdom from its forest rishis, and that it was also the area towards which he later struggled, despite sickness and pain, as his deliberately-chosen place to die. There is compelling evidence to show that this event - the parinibbana, or passing-away of the Buddha - occurred at the site of Rampurva, near the present Indo-Nepalese border. 86.
Both pilgrims agree with the Mahaparinibbana Sutta in stating that the Buddha died on the bank of the river Hiranyavati (or Ajitavati) between two sal trees, Yuan-chuang adding that Asoka had commemorated the spot with a stone pillar. 87. This pillar Yuan-chuang locates four li - about a kilometre - northwest of what still remained of the town of Kusinara at the time of his visit. Another stone pillar was located to the north of the town, and marked the place of the Buddha's cremation; this pillar he places ‘300 paces’ from the river's edge. 88. He also mentions a ‘yellowish-black’ soil at the site, which he believed might contain relics. 89.
The Asokan site of Rampurva still awaits
proper excavation, most of it having disappeared beneath the alluvial deposits
left by successive inundations from a nearby large river. 90.
This river I take to be the one mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims. When they
were discovered in 1877, the two Asokan pillars at this site were situated 300
yards apart (precisely as indicated by Yuan-chuang for the two Kusinara
pillars) and were also placed in similar bearings to those given by this
pilgrim, one being situated slightly to the west of the other. 91. Moreover, the
pilgrims mention only two sites at which two Asokan pillars were found - those
of Sravasti and Kusinara - and Rampurva is the only site in India where
there are two Asokan pillars to be found (there are none, I should add, at
Kasia). The so-called ‘Southern
Pillar’ at the Rampurva site I therefore take to mark the place of the parinibbana,
whilst the ‘Northern Pillar’ marked the Buddha's cremation-spot. At the time of
its discovery, the ‘Southern’ pillar was situated, between two mounds; these I
take to mark the locations of the two sal trees. 92. The
material which covered these mounds was a yellowish kankar, or lime, not
known in this vicinity (it was also found in the Lauriya Nandangarh mounds
mentioned above); this I take to be the curious ‘yellowish-black soil’
mentioned by Yuan-chuang at the Kusinara site. 93. Sir
John Marshall declared that the ‘Southern’ pillar (on which no inscription has
been found) ‘appears to have been wilfully mutilated, perhaps with the purpose
of destroying some inscription on it’. 94. A recent
photograph of this pillar reveals that a large section of the surface around
its fracture has been deliberately hacked away, which probably accounted for
its subsequent breakage at this point (see Fig. 13). This is, quite clearly, damage which is
wholly commensurate with the removal of an inscription, and I shall assume that this deed was
perpetrated by later enemies of Buddhism who believed, as Yuan-chuang’s guides
evidently did, that it mentioned the details of the Buddha’s final passing at this
spot.
Finally, I note that Fa-hsien gives 12 yojanas
- about 84 miles - as the distance between Kusinara and a stone pillar near
Vaishali. If this refers to the famous Asokan lion-pillar near this place (and
no other pillar has been found near there) 95 then this distance
matches that between Rampurva and Vaishali, the corresponding distance from
Vaishali to the Kasia site (60- 65 miles) being much too short. V. A. Smith
noted that Yuan-chuang ‘expressly states that Vaishali lay on the road from
Pataliputra to Nepal. Basar (Vaishali) lies on the ancient royal road from the
capital (Pataliputra) to Nepal, marked by three of Asoka’s pillars, which
passed Kesariya, Lauriya Araraj, Betiya, Lauriya-Nandangarh, Chankigarh, and Rampurva,
entering the hills by the Bhikna Thori Pass’ 96 (and thereby
traversing the ancient Mithila kingdom also, of which this portion of the Tarai
once formed part). This ‘ancient royal road’ is quite clearly marked, with a
double broken dotted line, on the 1" to 1 mile Survey of India maps. It
was, I believe, the ancient via regis that was trodden by the Buddha to
Kusinara (Rampurva), the same route being followed thereafter by Asoka, and
later, by the Chinese pilgrims themselves.
POSTCRIPT
I believe that India should now reclaim the birthright of her greatest son, Siddhartha Gautama (at present, he’s Nepalese). Unfortunately, despite the worldwide prestige – not to mention the revenue – which this tremendous prize may bring, I believe that it will also be regarded as something of a poisoned chalice. After all, the Brahmins fought Buddhism for centuries before its final downfall, and they’re not about to welcome it back, as the century-old struggle for the control of Bodh Gaya grimly demonstrates. And what, too, about Kabir? He is generally considered to be the greatest Indian religious figure for a thousand years, and since everybody appears to want a piece of him – Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus alike – they’re not going to take too kindly to the proposal that he chose to die at the site of the Buddha’s home town. And what effect might this tremendous homecoming have on those feisty Buddhist Dalits, or on all those modern young Indians who know that Buddhism is now considered ‘cool’, and is much admired throughout the West? Small wonder then that there would now appear to be something of an Indian conspiracy of silence upon these findings, and that everyone is still trying to proceed as before, ‘wrapt in the old miasmal mist’. Buddhists, however, should be well aware of this silence, for if the conclusions set out above are correct – and some important people now think that they are - then these critical sites of world history (which include two of the Four Holy Places of Buddhism) have now been rediscovered after being lost for fifteen hundred years, and there may not be another chance to set the record straight. It really is as simple as that.
© 2007, T. A . Phelps. All rights and
permissions reserved.
Any comments on this paper would be most
welcome. Please direct them to: taphelken@hotmail.com
1.
H. Luders, ‘On Some Brahmi Inscriptions in the Lucknow Museum’, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society (UK) 1912, fn., p. 167. Fuhrer was then Assistant Editor
(to Burgess) on the Epigraphia Indica. See ref. 4 also.
2. Proceedings of the Government of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh, Public Works Department, B. & R. Branch,
‘Miscellaneous’, Aug. 1899, Proceeding no. 100 (India Office Library, London).
3. A. A. Fuhrer, ‘The Sharqi Architecture of Jaunpur’
(1889), Archaeological Survey of India Reports (New Imperial Series) Vol. 11,
p. 69.
4. See ref. 1, pp. 161-8. Luders neglects to mention
that Fuhrer had himself supplied Buhler with the details of these and other
inscriptions – almost 400 in all – for Buhler’s assessment in the Epigraphia
Indica, and epigraphists will now have the unenviable task of establishing the
authenticity of these items. Immediately following Fuhrer’s exposure in 1898,
Buhler drowned in Lake Constance in mysterious circumstances, and since he had
enthusiastically endorsed all of Fuhrer’s supposed discoveries, one cannot help
but wonder whether this tragedy was accidental.
5. See ref. 1 (Luders) pp. 176-79, and ‘Catalogue of
Archaeological Exhibits in the United Provinces Museum, Lucknow’ (Part 1:
Inscriptions) by Pandit Hirananda
Shastri, 1915, fn. 4, p. 39.
6. ‘The Pioneer’, Allahabad, 15th September,
1893, p. 3 ; J. Burgess, ‘The Academy’ (London) 44 (October 14th,
1893) p. 324 ; Annual Progress Report (A. Fuhrer) Arch. Survey of India, N. -W.
P. & Oudh Circle, y/e 1894, para. 22 ; and P. C. Mukherji, ‘A Report on a Tour of Exploration of the
Antiquities in the Tarai, Nepal’, Archaeological Survey of India Reports, New
Imperial Series, Vol. 26 (1901) p. 2 ( not of V. A. Smith’s ‘Prefatory
Note’ to this work) .
7. Annual Progress Reports, Archaeological Survey, N.
-W. P. and Oudh Circle, Epigraphical Section, y/e 1895 and 1897. It would appear from these accounts
that Singh had redirected Fuhrer to Nigliva - where Singh owned some villages -
at this time. But why was Singh’s original report revised so drastically? The
first notification of Singh’s alleged find was Fuhrer’s report in ‘The Pioneer’,
1893 (see ref. 6). According to this report, Singh had discovered an Asokan
‘lion-pillar’ near Bairat, a village 21 miles inside Nepal, which was supposed
to bear all of of the seven known Asokan pillar inscriptions, as well as two
new ones in a new script. Fuhrer even gave details of the contents of these two exciting new inscriptions, which were
supposedly ‘addressed to the Buddhist clergy of the Visas, the early
predecessors of the Bais of Nepal’. All this was, of course, complete nonsense,
and the pillar at Nigliva bore not the slightest resemblance to this
‘lion-pillar’ with its nine Asokan inscriptions (which has never been found, I
need hardly add). But why didn’t Singh himself promptly protest the
untruthfulness of this report when it appeared in the ‘Pioneer’? Since this
newspaper was noted for its links to intelligence, and Singh was a relative of
the Maharajah of Balrampur (a powerful zamindari
family which had aided the British during the Mutiny) one wonders whether
this item was perhaps some sort of ‘plant’, designed to further British
imperial interests in Nepal. Whatever the event, this phony discovery paved the
way for all the other alleged Asokan discoveries in the Nepalese Tarai
(‘Rummindei’ included) but an increasingly paranoid Nepalese Government
eventually put an end to these archaeological intrusions into its territory,
and the border became firmly closed to all such ‘surveys’ shortly thereafter
(cf. Smith’s fulminations on the matter in the JRAS (UK) 1897, pp.
619-21).
8. Ibid, y/e 1895, p. 1. See also ‘Notes and News’, pp.
691-2, JRAS (UK) 1895.
9. ‘A Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’, by
A. A. Fuhrer (1897) Arch. Surv. of Northern India Reports, Vol. 6, p. 25 (reprinted in Varanasi (1972) as
‘Antiquities of Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’). See also ref. 8, p. 2.
10. See ref. 6, Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’ to Mukherji’s
report, fn., p. 4.
11. See ref. 2, Aug. 1899, Proceedings nos. 90-91, pp.
29-33 (India Office Library, London). The same details are also disclosed in
the Government of India Proceedings (Part B), Department of Revenue &
Agriculture, Archaeology & Epigraphy, April 1899, File no. 6 ; see
‘Enclosure 1’ (Report) of letter no. 53A, and also letter no. 41A in this file.
(National Archives of India, New Delhi). This report by Waddell and Hoey,
detailing the results of their own (1899) excursion into the Tarai, exposes the
‘appalling audacity of invention’ displayed by Fuhrer regarding many of his
supposed Tarai discoveries, and led to the Government suppression of his
‘Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni’s Birthplace’ shortly thereafter. In a letter
accompanying this report, Waddell stated that the alleged stupa of Konagamana
‘did not in reality exist - it was a pure fabrication to reconcile this false
identification with the descriptions of the Chinese pilgrims’. There is,
however, good reason to believe that the deception also extended to the
inscription itself. Hoey stated
that following his appointment at nearby Gorakhpur in 1892, he had ‘employed an
agent who travelled over these parts and the Nepal Tarai, and brought me notes
of the pillar at Nigali Sagar and other remains including Piprahwa and
Rumindei’. In 1893 Hoey befriended
Khadga Shamsher, the Governor of this Tarai area, who ‘sent me rubbings from
pillars, but these were not of Asoka lettering’. From this it is evident that since Hoey knew about the
Nigliva pillar before Fuhrer’s arrival (and according to Fuhrer this
pillar was ‘known far and wide to the people of the Tarai’) it is also evident
that it would have been included in Khadga Shamsher’s earlier examinations on
Hoey’s behalf. But whereas
Shamsher found no Asokan inscription in 1893, Fuhrer supposedly arrived at
Nigliva in 1895 and found an inscription ‘visible above ground’, and without
any need for excavation. And if,
as Fuhrer states, the local villagers were aware of this inscription also, then
why hadn’t they alerted the Governor to its presence during his earlier examination of the site?
12. See ref. 9 (Fuhrer, Monograph ) pp. 33-4.
13. See ref. 7, y/e 1896, p. 2.
14. ‘The Birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, by V. A. Smith,
JRAS (UK) 1897, fn., p. 617.
15. ‘The Rummindei Inscription’, by V. A. Smith, Indian
Antiquary, Vol. 34 (1905) p. 1.
16. ‘The Life of Buddha’, by E. J. Thomas (1927) fn., p.
18.
17. See ref. 6, pp. 4, 43, and Plate 1. See also V. A.
Smith, Annual Progress Report, Archaeological Survey Circle, N. -W. P. &
Oudh, y/e 1899, p. 8.
18. ‘Nepal’, by Perceval Landon (1928) Vol. 2, p. 76.
19. ‘Nepal under the Ranas’, by Adrian Sever (1993) p.
469. See also ‘Princess’, by Vijayaraje Scindia (1985) pp. 5-8.
20. See ref. 2, Aug. 1899, proc. no. 12 (p. 5).
21. ‘Kapilavastu in the Buddhist Books’, by Thomas
Watters, JRAS (UK) 1898, p. 563.
22. ‘On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India’, by Thomas
Watters, Vol. 2 (1905) p. 17.
23. ‘She-Kia-Fang-Che’, trans. by P. C. Bagchi
(Calcutta, 1959) p. 69. A Sinologist, who has consulted a recent Chinese
variorum of the Fang-chih, assures me that Bagchi’s translation, whilst ‘not
very good’, is nevertheless correct upon this most important point.
24. See ref. 14 (Smith) p. 619.
25. See ref. 21 (Watters) p. 547.
26. See ref. 6 (Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’) p. 17.
27. In the Preface to Watters’ book, Rhys Davids writes
that ‘We have thought it best to leave Mr Watters’s Ms. untouched, and to print
the work as it stands’. This statement was a demonstrable lie. Rhys Davids was
evidently unaware that Watters had already published a considerable portion of
this work in an earlier series of articles entitled ‘the Shadow of a Pilgrim’
(there are online extracts from these) in ‘The China Review’, Vols. 18-20
(1890-92). A comparison of the text of these articles with that of the book
discloses that these posthumous editors of Watters had, in fact, substantially
tampered with his original text, omitting entire paragraphs and radically
rearranging others. Unfortunately,
these ‘China Review’ articles stop just short of Yuan-chuang’s account of his
visit to the Kapilavastu area, so we will never know (unless his original
manuscript is found by its publishers, the Royal Asiatic Society) just exactly
what Watters did write in this
subsequent section of his work. My
enquiries have been both wide and extensive as to the whereabouts of this
missing manuscript, but alas, have drawn a perfect blank. I also note that
although Watters mentioned the Lumbini inscription in his earlier ‘Kapilavastu
in the Buddhist Books’ (JRAS 1898, pp. 533-71) he made no mention of this phony
‘Fang-chih’ reference in this article.
But then this was, of course, published while Watters was still
alive.
28. A. A. Fuhrer, Annual Progress Report, Archaeological
Survey, N. -W. P. & Oudh Circle. y/e 1898, p. 2. See also ref. 6 (Smith’s
'Prefatory Note' to Mukherji's report) p. 4, and also ref. 17 (Smith, Ann.
Prog. Rep. 1899) pp. 1-2.
29. Government of India Proceedings (Part B), Department
of Revenue & Agriculture (Archaeology & Epigraphy section), Aug. 1898,
File no. 24 of 1898, Proceedings nos. 7-10. (National Archives of India, New
Delhi).
30. Ibid. See also ref. 6 (Smith’s ‘Prefatory Note’ to
Mukherji’s report) p. 4.
31. See ref. 7, y/e 1897, p. 3; and ref. 9 (Fuhrer, Monograph
) Chapter 5, concluding paragraph.
32. ‘Lumbini’, by T. W. Rhys Davids, ‘Encyclopaedia of
Religion & Ethics’, Vol. 8, p. 196.
33. ‘Development of Buddhism in Uttar Pradesh’, by N.
Dutt and K. D. Bajpai, (Lucknow, 1956) p. 330.
34. ‘Asokan Pillars: A Reassessment of the Evidence
(2)’, by John Irwin, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 126, p. 714 (Dec. 1974) ; J. F.
Fleet, ‘The Rummindei Inscription and the Conversion of Asoka to Buddhism’,
JRAS (UK) 1908, p. 472.
35. ‘The Birthplace of Gautama Buddha’, by V. A. Smith,
JRAS (UK) 1897, p. 618.
36. See ref. 9, pp. 27-8, and Fuhrer’s Annual Progress
Report, Archaeological Survey, N. -W. P. and Oudh Circle, Epigraphical Section,
y/e 1897, pp. 3-4. This is not, of course, the 12 th century Tapu
Malla inscription near the top of the pillar, nor the Tibetan ‘Om Mani Padme
Hum’ inscription close to it.
37. Ref. 9,
p. 34.
38.
See entry ‘Sakyamuni (= Saka-muni)’ in H. Luders, ‘A List of Brahmi
Inscriptions from the Earliest Times to About 400 A.D. with the Exception of
Those of Asoka’, Epigraphia Indica 10, p. 197. The earliest inscription containing the form ‘Sakyamuni’
appears to be that of the Wardak Vase, ‘where the name is Sankritized as Śakyamuni’ according
to N. G. Majumdar (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 24, p. 2. Despite
Majumdar’s statement that the Kurram Casket also shows ‘Sakyamuni’, this
is incorrect, and should read ‘Sakamuni’ ; see Epigraphia 18, p.
17). It would appear, in fact,
that the form ‘Sakyamuni’ emerged when Buddhist Prakrit inscriptions began to
receive Sanskrit influence (so-called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit) this
development occurring much later than Asokan times.
39.
J. F. Fleet, ‘Inscriptions’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 14, 11th edn.
(1911) p. 622.
40.
‘Indian Epigraphy’, by Richard Salomon (1998) p. 242.
41.
See article (in Nepali) by Tara Nanda Mitra, published in the Saturday
supplement to the ‘Gorkhapatra’ newspaper, Kathmandu, 27 Baisakh, 2043 (1986)
and ‘Evolution of Buddhism and Archaeological Excavations in Lumbini’, by Tara
Nanda Mishra, in ‘Ancient Nepal’, no. 155, June 2004.
42.
See ref. 6 (Mukherji) pp. 35-6 and Plates 21 & 22. The former ‘modern, mean construction’
(Fuhrer, 1897) has recently been removed from the face of the earth, and has
since been replaced by a larger (and even more modern) construction.
43.
‘Buddhist Monuments’, by Debala Mitra (Calcutta, 1971) p. 251.
44.
See ref. 6 (Mukherji) p. 36 and Plates 24, 24a, and 26.
45.
‘Nepal’, by Perceval Landon, Vol. 1, pp. 9-10.
46.
V. A. Smith, ‘The Piprahwa Stupa’, JRAS (UK) 1898, p. 868. See also Mahabodhi
Society Journal (Calcutta) May 1900, pp. 2-3.
47.
Govt. of India Proceedings (Part B), Department of Revenue & Agriculture,
(Archaeology & Epigraphy section), Aug. 1898, Proceedings no. 15, File no.
30 of 1898, p. 2. (National Archives of India, New Delhi).
48.
See ref. 29. In a letter to U Ma dated 19th November, 1896, Fuhrer
writes : ‘My Dear Phongyi, The relics of Tathagata, sent off yesterday, were
found in the stupa erected by the Sakyas of Kapilavastu over the corporeal
relics (saririka-dhatus) of the Lord.
The relics were found by me during an excavation in 1886, and are placed
in the same relic-casket of soapstone in which they were found. The four votive
tablets of Buddha surrounded the relic-casket. The ancient inscription found on the spot with the relics
will follow, as I wish to prepare a transcript and translation of the same for
you’. Since Peppe was deemed to have made an identical discovery a year later
(viz., that of an inscribed soapstone casket containing those relics of the
Buddha that were accorded to the Sakyas of Kapilavastu after the Buddha’s
cremation) it would appear that this earlier deception was thus merely a ‘dry
run’, as it were, for the supposed Piprahwa finds of 1898. From this letter it will also be seen
that Fuhrer sent a bogus soapstone relic casket to U Ma, but no details can now
be traced about its appearance, how Fuhrer obtained it, or its subsequent fate,
and no details of the alleged inscription can now be traced either. Fuhrer’s letters to U Ma - there are eleven of them, stretching
between 1896 to 1898 - have never seen the public light of day, and make both
instructive and entertaining reading. For their details, see ref. 29.
49.
See ref. 28 (all refs. quoted).
50.
W. C. Peppe', ‘The Piprahwa Stupa, containing relics of Buddha’, JRAS (UK)
1898, p. 576.
51. Charles Allen, ‘The Buddha and Dr Fuhrer’
(2008) p. 260. See also ‘ The
Sunday Times Magazine’ article cited in ref. 53.
52.
‘Notes on the Exploration of Vaisali’, by Theodor Bloch, ASI Annual Report,
Bengal Circle, y/e April 1904, p. 15.
53.
See ref. 50, p. 574. The caskets (including the inscribed item) are now in the
custody of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, the Siamese having also been granted
pieces of a ‘decayed sandalwood casket’ found within the stupa. No drawing or
photograph was ever made of the missing (summit) casket however, the earliest
of the supposed finds. It is absent from the Indian Museum’s collection (and
Accession List) of the Piprahwa items, and no mention of it occurs in Smith’s
detailed list of the Piprahwa finds either (see ref. 46 (Smith) pp. 868-70). Of the twenty drawings of the Sagarwa
and Piprahwa items which were listed in Fuhrer’s 1898 Progress Report, the
three Piprahwa drawings are now missing from the ASI archives at Agra
(including the drawing of the inscribed casket). As for the Piprahwa jewellery,
Smith stated that ‘Mr Peppe has generously placed all the objects discovered at
the disposal of Government, subject to the retention by him, on behalf of the
proprietors of the estate, of a reasonable number of duplicates of the smaller
objects’ (see ref. 47, Smith's reference to those ‘duplicates’ being later
repeated in the JRAS : see ref. 46).
Since recent events have shown, however, that Peppe retained one-third - 360 pieces - of the original
items of Piprahwa jewellery (which, my researches have shown, may well
have been taken from Fuhrer's Sagarwa excavations anyway, the jewellery from
this site having promptly disappeared) it is evident that this proposal to
‘place all the objects discovered at the disposal of Government’ was not met,
and the question thus arises as to whether these items were unlawfully retained
thereafter (see ‘The Sunday Times Magazine’ (UK) March 21st, 2004, pp. 36-42).
One also wonders why Smith found it necessary to lie - to central Government,
no less - upon the matter of those ‘duplicates’.
54.
‘Buddhism in England’ (Journal of the Buddhist Society, London) July 1931, pp.
61-4; Oct. 1931, p. 78; Mar- Apr. 1932, p. 180.
55.
‘Political and Secret’, Home Correspondence, 1898 (India Office Library,
London). The official correspondence immediately following this discovery (see
ref. 47) draws attention to the political advantages to be gained from awarding
the relics to surrounding Buddhist countries, and also makes various pointed
references to the presence in India at this time of a Siamese crown prince,
Jinavarmavansa - a cousin to the King - who soon showed a keen interest in
acquiring the bone relics for Siam.
56.
See ‘Discovery of Kapilavastu’, by K. M. Srivastava (1986), ‘Buddha's Relics
from Kapilavastu’ (same author) 1986, and ‘Excavations at Piprahwa and
Ganwaria’ (1996). He also claimed to have discovered (precisely as Debala Mitra
had earlier predicted) clay inscriptions bearing the word ‘Kapilavastu’, in
monastic remains adjacent to the stupa. Alarmed by these claims however, that
doyen of Buddhist archaeologists, Herbert Härtel, declared sharply at the 14th
International EASAA Conference in Rome (1997) that ‘it is high time to set a
token of ‘scientific correctness’ in this extremely important matter’, but his
call for action went unheeded, authorities worldwide preferring to maintain a
deafening silence instead (see Herbert Härtel, ‘On the Dating of the Piprahwa
Vases’, in ‘South Asian Archaeology 1997’, Rome, 2000). In 2006, a conference was held under
the auspices of the Royal Asiatic Society at Harewood House, in England, in an
attempt to ‘clear the air’ over the vexed problem of Piprahwa, but it was
decided not to publish the findings that were then disclosed (some of which
have been published in this paper) the authorities electing, yet again, to
discreetly close the lid on this particular Pandora’s box. It is, in fact, high
time that this tiresome old ‘relic of Empire’ was finally put to bed, but since
many powerful agendas are at stake here – religious, political, financial, and
academic - this is unlikely to happen at present.
57. Throughout this essay I have utilised
Sir H. M. Elliot’s conclusion that the yojana of Fa-hsien was ‘as nearly as
possible’ 7 miles, as revealed by the distances between known sites, e. g.
Vaishali to Pataliputra (Patna) - 35 miles - which is given by Fa-hsien as 5
yojanas ; Elliot cites further examples also (‘Memoirs of the History,
Folk-lore, and Distribution of the Races of the North-Western Provinces of
India’, by Sir H. M. Elliot (1869) Vol. 2, pp. 195-6). This, in turn, shows the li of
Yuan-chuang to have been about 308 yards, since this pilgrim cites 40 li to the
yojana.
58.
‘Sravasti’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1900, pp. 6-7.
59.
‘Kausambi and Sravasti’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1898, pp. 520-31.
60.
‘The Site of Sravasti’, by J. Ph. Vogel, JRAS (UK) 1908, pp. 971-5, and
‘Archaeological Exploration in India, 1907-8’, by J. H. Marshall, JRAS (UK)
1908, pp. 1098-1104.
61.
‘Archaeological Research on Ancient Buddhist Sites’, by Herbert Härtel, in ‘The
Dating of the Historical Buddha’ (Pt.1) p. 62, (ed. Heinz Bechert, 1991).
62.
‘A Weaver Named Kabir’, by Charlotte Vaudeville (1993) pp. 56 and 61-2.
According to Kabir, Maghar was ‘haramba’, from the Arabic ‘haram’, meaning
‘forbidden’ (the word ‘harem’ derives from the same root). Interestingly, a young Hindu at nearby
Gorakhpur told me that his mother declared that it was unlucky to think of
either Maghar or the (Buddhist) Kasia site in the early morning, a tradition
also indicative of the ‘forbidden’ Buddhist nature of both places.
63.
Gregory Schopen, ‘Burial ‘Ad Sanctos’ and the Physical Presence of the Buddha
in Early Indian Buddhism’: Religion, Vol. 17, pp. 193-225 (1987). The issue of
the Buddha’s ‘parinirvanic presence’ in stupas, images, relics, places, etc.,
is also examined in ‘Embodying the Dharma’, ed. by K. Trainor and D. Germano
(New York, 2004) and ‘Relics of the Buddha’, by John S. Strong (Princeton
University Press, 2004). See also ref. 81 (below).
64.
‘Report of Tours in Gorakhpur, Saran, and Ghazipur in 1878-80’, by A. C. L.
Carlleyle, Archaeological Survey of India Reports (Old Series) Vol. 22, p. 72,
(1885). See also ref. 62 (Vaudeville) p. 61-2. It is noteworthy that Carlleyle himself made not the
slightest attempt to follow the implications of this extraordinary statement
(and alas, gave no indications of its origin) but his use of the word ‘reputed’
here strongly suggests that this information came from a local source. Even
more extraordinary is the fact that nobody has since made the glaringly obvious
connection between Carlleyle’s statement and the location of Kapilavastu, given
the bearings from Sravasti which are cited by the pilgrims. Here, surely, was
the key to the real whereabouts of Kapilavastu, staring everyone right in the
face.
65.
See ref. 22 (Watters) p. 1., and ‘Travels of Fa-Hsien’, by H. A. Giles, p. 36
(1926). Yuan-chuang noted the remains of around 1000 ruined monasteries and ten
ruined cities in the Kapilavastu region. Whilst such features appear to be
absent from the areas around the present nominations for the site of
Kapilavastu, Carlleyle noted that the remains at Tameshwar, near to Maghar,
appeared to be those of ‘an ancient city of considerable size and importance...
(with) many Buddhist viharas and monasteries’. Similar nearby sites were also
noted by Carlleyle at the time of his visits in the 1870s - Koron-dih,
Mahasthan, Bakhira-dih, etc. All still await excavation.
67.
‘The History, Antiquities, Topography, and Statistics of Eastern India’,
(usually referred to as ‘Eastern India’) by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton (ed. R.
M. Martin) Vol. 2, p. 393 (1838).
The ‘Thakur-dih’ area is behind the very northernmost houses of the
village, immediately to the south of the Gorakhpur-Basti road, and can be
accessed from an old road/track which runs to the east of the main turn
off into Maghar. It is near to Ghanshiampur. I would welcome any further information on this site (see my
email address at the end of this paper). According to a recent website entitled
‘National : Maghar to be developed as tourism spot : 20288’ , Buddhists are now
increasingly visiting Maghar (presumably as a result of my conclusions) and the
UP government has proposed that a park be built there in consequence. It is earnestly to be hoped that
archaeological considerations are held uppermost in any such ‘development’.
68.
This information, it should be noted, emerged quite spontaneously, and with no
prompting from me. Such local
traditions often persist strongly in rural areas. On rediscovering the remains of the ‘lost’ 7th
century Chinese Nestorian Christian monastery of Da Qin in 1998, Martin Palmer
discovered that local sources were also perfectly well aware of the former
existence of the place, the tradition having persisted there for 1400 years.
69.
‘A Manual of Budhism’ (sic) by R. Spence Hardy (1853) p. 144; and ‘The Life or
Legend of Gaudama’, by P. Bigandet, vol. 1, p. 12. Since the present Lumbini
site lies 27 kms. west of this river border, this would have located it deep
inside any former Kapilavastu territory, and it would hardly have been
considerd ‘neutral’ in consequence.
70.
‘Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions of the North-Western Provinces’, by A.
A. Fuhrer (1891) p. 242. See also Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
(Part 1) p. 56 (1884), and Minutes of the Managing Committee (North-Western
Provinces and Oudh Provincial Museum) Vol. 1, 1885-6, Appendix A (p. 107).
Since Lucknow Museum has informed me that neither this casket nor its
associated items can now be traced, no date for this deposit is presently
available (though since coins were also found, this strongly suggests a Kushan
provenance). For earlier topographical accounts of the site, see ref. 67
(Buchanan-Hamilton) pp. 352-3, and ref. 64 (Carlleyle) pp. 64-7.
Buchanan-Hamilton referred to the presence of ‘many small detached heaps’ at
the site during his visit in the early 1800s : were these votive stupas, one
wonders? He also mentions two ancient shrines of Mohammedan holy men at
Domingarh. Doubtless these were Sufi pirs, remarkably eclectic in their
spiritual outlook, whose cult ‘often developed by taking over an old
Buddhistical site’ according to Prof. Vaudeville (as Kabir did at Maghar).
Though the decline of Buddhism in India often saw the conversion of remaining
Indian Buddhists to Islam, this was done largely for pragmatic social reasons,
and Buddhist sites and beliefs were by no means promptly abandoned by such
conversions.
71. ‘Archaeological Geography of the Ganga
Plain’, by Dilip Chakrabarti (2001) p. 219. Chakrabarti states that this was
‘personal information’ from Krishnanand Tripathi, of the Department of Ancient
History at Gorakhpur University. Having telephoned Tripathi, however, he chose
not to answer my questions, referring me instead to Dr P. N. Singh of the
Banaras Hindu University. A colleague, Dr R. N. Singh, eventually promised to
supply me with further details on the matter, but has thus far failed to do so,
referring darkly to unspecified ‘socio-political problems’ instead. A road has
recently been driven clean through the Domingarh site, though the place
obviously warrants prompt, careful, and extensive excavation. An old bed of the
Rohini formerly ran to the east of
the mound (cf. Yuan-chuang’s ‘little river of oil’) and if my conclusion that
Domingarh was Lumbini is correct, then any buried Asokan pillar remains should
be sought in this area.
72.
See ref. 67 (Buchanan-Hamilton) vol. 2, pp. 352-3: ‘It is called the Domingarh,
or the castle of the Domlady’.
73.
See ref. 22 (Watters) p. 20, and ref. 65 (Giles) p. 39.
74.
Hirananda Sastri, Annual Report, Archaeological Survey of India (Northern
Circle) 1910-11, p. 69. Sastri mentions ‘the very heavy square bricks of the
Mauryan type of which it is mostly built’. Cf. the oldest bricks, ‘very large
and thick, and of a square shape’, found at the Domingarh site mentioned
earlier, and the similar bricks found at Rampurva (see section on ‘Kusinara’)
which Daya Ram Sahni identified as ‘the remnants of an extensive floor laid in
Asoka’s time’ (‘Excavations at Rampurva’, ASI Director-General’s Report,
1907-08, p. 183).
75.
The Ramabhar Tal (lake) : see A. Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of India
Reports (Old Series) Vol. 1, Plate 27, and also ref. 74 (Sastri) p. 69. I note
that in an 1893 letter to Hoey, L. A. Waddell had likewise concluded that
‘Kasia and the Ramabhar Chour (sic) is Ramagram’ (Papers of V. A. Smith,
Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford
University). See ref. 86
also.
76.
The stupa appeared to be ‘the centre of a group of religious buildings’; see
ref. 74 (Sastri) p. 70.
77.
See ‘Kusinara or Kusinagara’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1902, p. 153 ; ‘Bihar ( = vihara)’. The State of Bihar supposedly drew its
name from Muslim chroniclers, who noted the large number of Buddhist viharas in
the province.
78.
See ref. 67 (Buchanan-Hamilton) pp. 357-8. Sastri mentions an inscribed stone found at the
south-eastern aspect of this stupa, which ‘has some five lines of writing on it
which is much worn’ (ASI Annual Report, Northern Circle, 1911-12, p. 140). Unfortunately, he gives no date,
script, or possible content of this inscription, and the stone itself now
appears to have been either buried or removed. Was this the inscription seen by
Yuan-chuang, which purportedly mentioned the appearance of the naga from the
lake during Asoka’s visit?
79.
J. Ph. Vogel, Annual Report, Archaeological Survey of India (Punjab and United
Provinces Circle) 1904-5, p. 47.
What is decipherable of the ‘inscription, greatly obliterated,’ which is
found on this plaque?
80.
See ref. 74 (Sastri), p. 72 (‘Miscellaneous’, no.17).
81.
‘Simply put, the presence of relics is equal to the presence of the Buddha.
This is confirmed by early inscriptions.’ (‘Buddhist Reliquaries From Ancient
India’, by Michael Willis, p. 14, British Museum Publications, 2000). See also
ref. 63.
82.
See ref. 22 (Watters) pp. 25-6, and ref. 23 (Bagchi) p. 70. It should always be
borne in mind, I feel, that for Fa-hsien ‘east’ could mean anywhere east of a
north-south axis (ditto with regard to other directions also) whilst for
Yuan-chuang, similarly, ‘north-east’ meant anywhere between north and east. On
the fascinating question of how the pilgrims navigated between sites, it must
be remembered that the Chinese had utilised the lodestone as early as the 4th
century BC, and that this had been improved by the introduction of a magnetized
needle by 600 AD (which may account for Yuan-chuang's greater accuracy in these
matters). As monks they would also have stayed in monasteries en route, where
the resident monks would doubtless have supplied them with advice, guides, etc
for their onward journey.
83.
Champaran District Gazetteer (1907) by L. S. S. O’Malley, pp. 14-15.
85.
See ref. 77 (Smith) pp. 154-5, ref. 75 (Cunningham) p. 70, and Bengal
Administration Reports for 1868-69, para. 273. It is perhaps worthy of remark that the Buddha’s body was
cremated inside two iron ‘vessels’, according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta.
86.
Having arrived at this conclusion by the simple expedient of following, on a
map, the distances and directions from Sravasti to Kusinara which are given by the
Chinese pilgrims, I was intrigued to note that L. A. Waddell, presumably using
the same process, had arrived at a similar conclusion : ‘I believe that
Kusinagara, where the Buddha died, may be ultimately found to the north of
Bettiah, and in the line of the Asoka-pillars which lead hither from Patna
(Pataliputra)’ (‘A Tibetan Guide-book to the Lost Sites of the Buddha's Birth
and Death’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1896, p. 279). Rampurva
lies thirty-odd miles north of Bettiah along the Narkatiaganj-Gawnaha Road
railway line, and about 3 kilometres s/w of the latter station. According to an
unpublished 1897 report, Waddell deputed P.C. Mukherji to ‘search for the site
of the Buddha’s Parinirvana in the jungly tract from Rampurva, where is
an inscribed Asoka pillar, to Bhikna Thori’ (and this before it was known that
there were two Asokan pillars at the Rampurva site). Waddell and I thus
arrived at identical conclusions regarding the whereabouts of both the
Ramagrama and Kusinara sites, simply by following the pilgrims’ directions.
Moreover, one suspects that Sir John Marshall entertained similar notions also,
particularly after the reconfirmation of Sahet-Mahet as Sravasti : hence,
presumably, his evident interest in the apparently ‘missing’ inscription at
Rampurva (see ref. 94, below). The Mukherji/Waddell report is among V. A.
Smith’s papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (see ref. 75).
87.
See ref. 22 (Watters) p. 28.
90.
Daya Ram Sahni, ‘Excavations at Rampurva’, Archaeological Survey of India,
Director-General's Report (1907-8) p. 182 : ‘Up to the depth of 7 feet the
digging was quite easy, for we were digging through layers of clay alternating
at irregular intervals with sand, deposited obviously by some large river...’
91.
See ref. 64 (Carlleyle) : the orientation arrow on Plate 6 (map) would appear
to confirm this. See also ref. 90 (Sahni) p. 185. Since the pillars were
subsequently moved to the top of the western mound near the ‘Southern’ pillar (see
Ann. Rep., Arch. Surv. of India, Eastern Circle, 1912-13, p. 36) their original
find-spots presumably await rediscovery at the site. Whilst the pillars at
Sravasti have never been found, a correspondent informs me that in 1976 he saw
part of one in use as a sugar-cane crusher in a nearby village, though on a
later visit it had disappeared.
92.
See ref. 64 (Carlleyle) p. 53.
93.
See ref. 22 (Watters) pp. 39-40, and Theodor Bloch, Archaeological Survey of
India (Eastern Circle) Annual Report, 1906-7, p. 121.
94.
‘Archaeological Exploration In India, 1907-8’, by J. H. Marshall, JRAS (UK)
1908, p. 1088. Since the upper part of this pillar was found lying on the
Asokan flooring at the site (which is about ten feet below the surface) other
researchers have concluded that it was broken at an early date, but I see no
particular necessity to endorse this proposal. The lion-capital on the
‘Northern’ pillar would appear to have been deliberately - and literally –
‘defaced’ also (a notorious Muslim practice) and Cunningham records that
a Muslim raiding-party, returning from Bengal, took cannon pot-shots at the
nearby Lauriya Nandangarh lion-capital in 1660, damaging it in the mouth. The
pillars at Rampurva could thus have been damaged along with these later events,
and with the entire site being heavily waterlogged – ‘a morass’, according to
Carlleyle and Garrick - the broken pieces from the ‘Southern’ pillar could
easily have sunk down through the silt thereafter. Long trenches, over two
metres deep, which were dug by Carlleyle in 1877, had silted over when Garrick
visited the site a mere three years later.
95.
V. A. Smith points out - quite correctly, in my opinion - that Fa-hsien's
account regarding the location of this ‘leave-taking’ pillar (which this
pilgrim states was inscribed) is in error, and that Yuan-chuang’s account is
the more reliable in placing it close to Vaisali (see ref. 77 (Smith) pp.
146-9). Since the present Vaisali pillar appears to have sunk under its own
vertical weight, its shaft has yet to be fully revealed in its entirety, and
the question of whether it is inscribed remains unresolved in consequence.
96.
‘Vaisali’, by V. A. Smith, JRAS (UK) 1902, pp. 270-1. See also ref. 64
(Carlleyle) p. 50. The maps are available in the Map Room of the British
Library, London, and the road is also shown on Plate 1 of the ASI Reports (Old
Series) Vol. 16. Doubtless, the
long-lost villages mentioned in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta lay along it -
Kotigama, the Nadikas, Bhandagama, Hatthigama, etc - and presumably lay about 1
yojana (7 miles) apart.
|
Fig. 2. Mukherji’s 1899 drawing of the ‘Mayadevi’ sculpture. Note join at neck, and compare with Fig. 5. This item has now been replaced with an ‘improved’ (1956) version at the site. |
Fig. 3. Chulakoka (devata). (Bharhut Stupa). |
Fig. 4 Chanda (yakshini). (Bharhut Stupa). |
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Fig. 5. Photograph of Fig. 2 . |
Fig. 6. Landon’s photograph (taken around 1920 at the present Lumbini site) showing P. C. Mukherji’s assembly of a head of Ganesh on the torso of a female deity. Is this the correct torso for the ‘Mayadevi’ head (see Figs. 2 and 5) ? |
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Fig. 7. The Sonari (Bhilsa) casket. |
Fig. 8. The inscribed Piprahwa casket, photographed at Piprahwa in 1898. Compare with Fig. 7 item, and note the appearance, on both caskets, of the final two characters above the inscriptional line. |
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Fig. 9. The Mogallana casket from Sanchi, as shown in Alexander Cunningham's book, ‘Bhilsa Topes’. |
Fig.10. The small (uninscribed) Piprahwa casket. Compare with Fig. 9 item. |
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Fig.
11. The Satdhara (Bhilsa) casket. © The British Museum. |
Fig. 12. The lota from Piprahwa, photographed in 1898. Note double bands of incised rings (top and middle) as on Fig. 11 item : the vessels are also of identical size. This item, and the casket shown in Fig. 10, have now faded to a dull grey-white. |
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Fig. 13.
The ‘Southern’ pillar at Rampurva.
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